Apple allows porn, Playboy coming to iPad

Sophisticates across the world, you may rejoice. One of America’s classiest magazines, Playboy, will soon bare it all on the iPad, says Hugh Hefner, founder of the magazine. Every issue of the magazine, from 1953 to 2011, will be available and uncensored on the iPad in March, Hefner said in a series of tweets yesterday.

The news is an interesting reversal for Apple, which has previously sought to keep pornographic material off of its App Store. Last April, CEO Steve Jobs bluntly stated that if people want porn, they can go to Android. “….we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone,” said Jobs. “Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone…You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.”

Even Playboy’s official iPhone app has no full frontal nudity, which makes us wonder how Playboy made this deal. Apple must be eager to boost its syndicated content on the iPad. The hardware maker is also working with News Corp. to launch an iPad-only daily newspaper called The Daily, though the launch was recently delayed.

Some would argue that Playboy is not considered pornographic, but that is another debate for another time. Apple’s reversal is good for Playboy, which has seen its paper magazine business drop steadily for years now. Recently, Hugh Hefner has made bold moves to buy out all remaining stock in Playboy and privately own the company again. He hopes to expand the reach of the magazine and brand through new opportunities.

UPDATE 6:09 pm PST: Forbes investigated and found that Mr. Hefner may be confused. A Web version of Playboy will be available uncensored on the device, but the Playboy iPad app will be censored. Full story here.